340 
THE HIVE AND HONEY-BEE. 
The central combs had eggs and unsealed brood. No. 3 
was most thoroughly protected by double sides, filled in 
with charcoal, and all the holes in its honey-board were left 
open. It had a little frost, as No. 1. and its central combs 
contained eggs and some sealed brood. Although it had 
a better stock of bees than either of the others, it ap- 
peared to have begun to breed only a few days earlier. 
Jan. 30tii. — This month has been the coldest on record 
for more than fifty years. My hives have been exposed 
to a temperature of 30° below zero, and for forty-eight 
hours together the wind blew a strong gale, and the mer- 
cury rose only once to 6° below zero. No. 1 was again 
examined, and the bees found in good condition. The 
central comb was almost filled with scaled brood, nearly 
mature ; all the combs were free from mould, and the 
interior of the hive was dry. In a hive as well protected 
as No. 3, but which had no upward ventilation, the 
vapor, or breath of the bees, which had frozen in it, having 
melted in consequence of a sudden thaw, both combs and 
bees were in a wretched condition. 
As long as the vapor remains congealed, it can only 
injure the bees by keeping them from stores which they 
need ; but, as soon as a thaw sets in, hives which have no 
upward ventilation are in danger of being ruined.* 
Mr. E. T. Sturtevant, of East Cleveland, Ohio, so widely 
known as an experienced Apiarian, in a letter to me, thus 
gives his experience in wintering bees in the open air : 
a No extremity of cold that we ever have in this climate, will 
injure bees, if their breath is allowed to pass off, so that they arc 
* In March, 1956, I lost some of my best colonies, under the followirg circum- 
stances: Tbo Winter had been Intensely cold, and the hives, having no u-.wnrd ven- 
tilation, were filled with frost, and, in some instances, the Ice on their glass sides 
was nearly a quarter of an inch thick. A few days of mild weather, in u bleb the 
frost begnn to thaw, were followed by n temperature below zero, accompanied by 
furious wind6, and in many of the hivos, the bees, which woro still wet from the 
thu'V, woro fi'o: on. together in an almost a olid than*. 
